The “big tent” mentality must begin in library school. We must begin by challenging ourselves to reach out to those in our department, and to students at other library schools. The web has allowed for the conventional barriers of interaction to fall away, and given us the tools to somewhat define our own education. Yes, we may all have to take this class or present that paper to graduate, but interacting with fellow library school students will inform and expand our motivations and knowledge, give us new tools for advocacy, and a broader platform to advocate from, constructively criticize our own education, and offer successful solutions to other students looking for change in their own programs.

I had not read that post until today, but I got a “great minds think alike” moment because I had written something similar in my closing thought as part of the ACRL presentation the other day.

In closing, I’d like to leave you with this final thought. Once upon a time, we were all sitting in a classroom at our respective graduate level library science programs. In that classroom, there were no academic librarians, public librarians, school librarians, or special librarians. We were just people who wanted to be librarians, who sat through the same core classes, and worked together on projects and papers. While we later took classes that reflected the interests of our own career paths, for that brief period of time we were all together. I’d like to urge you to go back to that time. To think about the shared purpose in those professional nascent days. To remember that are no actual barriers between us and that there never were. That we as a profession share those common roots and origins. In getting back to those aspects, we can once again work together to advocate for all kinds and types of libraries. Just as we worked together in that classroom back then.

Check out the rest of her post. This project just puts a giant smile on my face every time it pops up on my Twitter feed or Google Reader. It’s really impressive to me the amount of effort that they have poured into the project for the benefit of the profession as a whole. They’re taking the library program and making it work for them, expanding it well beyond the walls of their own classrooms. Pretty frikkin’ sweet, I’d say. These are people to watch.